Thimble
by The Hybird
Summary: A Panfiction. Peter Pan stumbles across the Doctor's TARDIS and is transported back in time to meet Wendy. Meanwhile, Clara and the Doctor investigate the "fairies" of Kensington Gardens and Neverland, learning that they are in fact inter-dimensional beings who have done experiments on Peter Pan in an attempt to extend their own lifespans. A story with a LOT of subtle references.
1. Prologue

The baby was crying. His exhausted mother slept peacefully in her rocking chair by the window, oblivious to her child's wails. It was a peaceful night and the air was still; so had she been awake, she would have been most startled when a powerful gust of wind blew the nursery's window open.

This was no natural occurrence, as was soon evident by the tiny, glowing creatures that zipped into the room through the open window. There were three of them, and they flew with purpose to where the baby lay on a soft cot in his wooden crib with a blanket tucked around him. He was but a week old. Alighting on the boy's chest, they began to talk to him soothingly in their tinkling, bell-like voices. As a baby, he had no trouble at all understanding what they were saying. His sobs stopped abruptly, replaced by the loveliest of gurgles: a baby's first laugh.

"Do it now!" tinkled the mauve fairy.

The two other ones, which were grey, hurriedly reached into a bucket-like object they were carrying between them and grabbed sparkling dust from it which they sprinkled over the infant just as another fairy, emerged from the baby's first laugh.

The baby sneezed.

"Quick! Quick!" the mauve fairy cried. "Inject it into his brain!"

"What's going on?" the new arrival asked. His azure light pulsed around him in slight unease as the two grey fairies flew forward and pressed the metallic object they carried against the boy's forehead.

There was a sound like metal scraping on metal as tiny needles shot out from the item held fast to the baby's head and injected a large amount of _something_ into his system.

The baby began to glow, then rose suddenly from his crib, laughing again. His laugh was peculiar now. It sounded looped; almost unnatural.

"What've you done to him?" the blue fairy asked in alarm.

"We've blessed him," the pink fairy replied. "We've granted him eternal youth."

"But _why?_ " the new fairy was too new to understand.

"His eternal youth means eternal life for you," the mauve fairy replied. "You should be grateful.

"Now come; the Fairy Council will want to see you now. You have become the most precious fairy in all the lands. You must be protected, as must this child."

The azure fairy looked back uneasily at his creator, the young, glowing boy. "What is it?" he asked.

"We are calling it Perpetuated Avoidance of Necrosis," one of the grey ones answered. "Or for short, PAN."


	2. Chapter 1: An Angry Mother

It was an early spring night, and the stars had come out to see what was going on in London. Nothing interesting seemed to be happening, but then the smallest of them spotted a gay figure leaping along the rooftops and flying 'round the chimneys.

It was Peter.

He pranced and rolled and flew his way down the street until he arrived at number fourteen. The wind blew the window on the third floor open for Peter, and he dropped in.

The nursery was quite as it always had been: three beds with their headboards against one wall, all neatly made. In between each bed was a bookshelf with toys and books neatly arranged, and at the edge of the bed on rightmost side was a trunk full of toys that had once been played with often. Pirate hats hung on the coat hanger attached to the door, and swords of different sizes and designs were thrust carelessly into a corner of the room. Indeed, nothing had changed.

But as Peter approached the rightmost bed, where year after year he had found a girl sleeping, he noticed that in the short tread there, his feet had gotten dusty. He thought little of it, however. Arriving at the bed, he was startled to see that it was as neatly made as the other two, and that there was no one sleeping and waiting patiently for him in it.

"Margaret?" he called softly. "Margaret, I've come for you! It's springtime again." His voice grew suddenly stern. "Have you forgotten of your promise to help me with my spring-cleaning?"

But there was no one in the room to hear him and respond. At a loss as to what to do, Peter sat down and began to cry. The door to the nursery opened softly, but he did not notice.

A woman had entered the room to sweep it. She only swept it once a year, for springtime cleaning. Only once a year could she muster the courage to revisit this room and all the painful memories it brought back. The moment she saw Peter, she stiffened. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. Her voice was like ice: clear and sharp and cold.

Peter looked up at her. "I've come for my mother."

"How dare you show your face here again!" shrilled the woman. "After what you did—how _dare_ you come here looking for another mother! Eleven years! ELEVEN YEARS, Peter!" She came at him with her broom.

Bewildered, Peter shot to his feet and was at the windowsill in a moment. He would have fled had he not caught a glimpse of his attacker's face.

"Margaret?" he asked in disbelief, as the memories slowly came back to him. She had been his mother once. She had cared for him and played with him and told him stories. Now she was grown up, and now she was attacking him. His heart hardened as it always did against grown-ups. Growing up ruined everything.

She brought the broom down on where he had been. Peter was gone in a flash, but his shadow lingered a second too long behind him. With a terrific tearing noise, his shadow was ripped painfully from him as he tore off into the night.


	3. Chapter 2: Finding Peter

"Doctor," Clara began.

"Oh no," growled the Doctor leaning his head back slightly in annoyance. "Don't give me those eyes-I know those eyes! Your face is wide enough as it is, Clara, without giving me those eyes!"

"Doctor!" Clara said again, silencing him. "Can I choose where we go today?"

"No, no, no," the Doctor cried, pulling a few levers and firing up the helmet regulator. "I've got it all planned out already. A trip to Pluto's moon, Charon! Did you know Pluto was named after the Roman god of death? Fascinating place really-" seeing that he was losing her attention, he jumped to another idea. "Or Raxacoricofallapotorious! I brought Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness their once! Just dropping off an egg. Lovely species, Raxacoricofallapotorians! Just don't mess with the Slitheen-tried to blow up the whole planet! Twice. Or, we could go back in time and meet some pirates! Sea dogs, some people called them. Or space pirates! I know a few space pirates! Captain Henry Avery-"

" _Doctor_ ," Clara persisted. "Please?"

"Arh, fine," the Doctor agreed in resignation. "What is it this time?"

"You know how I wanted to visit Robin Hood, and you said he wasn't real but then he was?" Clara asked quickly, her head popping out from the other side of the console so that she could look at him.

"Oh no," the Doctor groaned. "Just because one fairytale existed, Clara, doesn't mean they're all real."

"But even if they're not, fairytales are based on truths, yeah?" Clara fixed her large eyes on him. "Like that girl in that mansion who was running through a pocket universe that moved way slower than our own, and all those stories that sprang up about ghosts?"

"So who do you want to look for? The Highwayman? Pinocchio? Goldilocks and the Three Bears of Doom?"

"I was thinking..." she was watching him carefully now. "Peter Pan!" she gushed at last.

"Oh don't be ridiculous, Clara!" Twelve moaned.

"Oh, come on!" insisted Clara. "Flying and never aging and second stars to the right...that sounds very sci-fi-y. What if Peter's like a robot gone wrong or something? Or an alien?"

"So you want to investigate the stories of Peter Pan and see where they all came from?" the Doctor asked, making his way up the stairs to one of his bookshelves.

"Yeah, actually," Clara replied, following him.

The Doctor snatched one of the books off the wall and shoved it at her. "Here. All you need to know. They say Peter Pan is a folktale-it was actually written by a man called James Matthew Barrie! He based it on the adventures and imagination of these five young boys he was friends with. One of them was named Peter; he would make up stories about all the things Peter could do, and when that Peter failed to do these things, he invented another Peter—Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Peter Pan is a made up character! So is Wendy Darling. So is Captain Hook. So is that fairy creature. Tinker Bell. It's all in there, Clara. If you want to visit him, read the book and use your imagination." He was already back at the console with his back turned to her. He raised his hands over his head and flapped them dismissively on the last words for emphasis.

"Doctor, you said I could choose," Clara insisted, whining slightly. "Besides. Neverland is the Second Star to the Right. Maybe it's actually a planet instead of a-magical-world! And maybe they use some sort of...technology or something to fly."

"Clara, this is completely ridiculous! We could be off sailing high seas, composing music with Bach, preventing explosions, saving _planets_!" With each thing he suggested he thrust one of his hands into the air.

"Doctor-"

"Fine," the Doctor sighed. Dully he began putting in the coordinates. "Earth, 20th century, Kensington Gardens, England." He pulled the lever.

The TARDIS shook as at travelled through the time vortex. Miraculously, not a single book fell off the shelf. Clara had always attributed it to something clever thing the Doctor had done with force fields or artificial gravity or something.

"Why are we going to London instead of Neverland?" Clara asked the Doctor over the ruckus of the entire ship shaking.

"Because we don't know where Neverland is," the Doctor shouted back.

"Well, it was 'Second to the Right and then Straight on 'Til Morning," Clara pointed out. "Doesn't that mean something in-space language or whatever?"

"It would, if we knew which star to count from," the Doctor replied. "And what position you have to view the stars from. And which morning."

With the normal materialization sound, they landed. The Doctor opened the door and peered outside. He exited the TARDIS and began to walk down a broad path; Clara followed.

"It's nighttime," Clara complained.

"Yes, it is."

"How're we supposed to find Peter Pan if it's nighttime?"

"Haven't you seen the play?" the Doctor answered. "It's supposed to be night! That's when Peter Pan supposedly whisks Wendy and her brothers away. Or if you've read _The Little White Bird_ , you'll know that it's only at night, after Lock-Out Time, that the fairies appear!"

"Yeah, well, there's nothing here," Clara observed, scanning the gardens quickly.

"Yes, that's the point; exactly!" the Doctor agreed.

Clara whipped her head around to look back at the TARDIS just in time to see a small boy clad in leaves fly inside. "Doctor."

"No little fairies," the Doctor was saying, pulling his hands close to him and wiggling his fingers magically. "No flying children. No Peter—"

" _Doctor_!" Clara said again as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

"No!" the Doctor cried, running towards the TARDIS as it faded in and out. "Wait!"


	4. Chapter 3: The Blue Box

Angry and confused, Peter did not immediately return to Neverland.

He flew first to Kensington Gardens to visit the fairies and ask them why Margaret had been angry at him. The fairies always knew.

The first fairy Peter encountered was a grey one.

"Hullo Peter," it said.

Peter alighted next to the fairy on the tree and began to cry softly.

"Why are you crying?" it asked.

"My mother was angry with me," Peter replied. "She has grown up and won't be my mother anymore."

"That's the way with grownups," the grey fairy agreed unsympathetically.

"What am I to do now? Who will help me clean in the springtimes?"

"We fairies can help," the fairy replied.

"But I want a _mother_ ," Peter whined.

"Then go find one."

Peter flew away in disgust. Fairies. Such fickle creatures.

Peter visited the old island he used to live at. He flew to say hello to Solomon Caw, only to find that he had died a good thirty years ago. He felt a twinge of something that might have been sadness had he been able to properly recall who Solomon Caw was, but it had been too long.

He flew on.

It was Lock-Out Time, so the Gardens were empty except for the fairies, who were currently having a raucous party. Finding no sympathy in Kensington, Peter was about to leave for the Neverland when he heard a peculiar noise.

It was a sort of wheezing, groaning, mechanical sound; loud and slightly musical. Intrigued, Peter followed it to its source. On his way there, he spotted two grownups, an old man and a girl walking along the Baby's Walk. He wondered how they had gotten in after Lock-Out Time, and snuck past them. He probably should have warned them about the fairies, who could be quite protective of the Gardens at night, but he was feeling spiteful towards all grown-up at this point. Let them face the wrath of the fairies.

Peter found what he figured must've been the source of the sound: a big blue box. It had glowing white words at the top and a sign with more words on the door, but Peter couldn't read. If Peter _could_ read, he would have seen that at the bottom of the sign the words "PULL TO OPEN" had been written. As it was, he pushed instead.

He was met with an extraordinary sight.

The inside was bigger than the outside. It glowed with a sort of bluish light. The walls were silver and made of metal with glowing round things that looked like archery targets stuck to them. Blackboards scribbled with meaningless symbols and bookshelves filled with books were everywhere. In the centre was a large machine thing with tons of levers and buttons and switches, all glowing. Peter found a large panel with some squishy white thing in it and stuck his hands into it.

The whole place jerked, and the noise he heard earlier came again, louder now that he was actually inside the box. Everything around him was thrown into chaos. The room shook and crashed from side to side, sending Peter, who weighed almost nothing, from one end of it to the other.

When his surroundings finally stopped moving, Peter hurried to the door and burst out of it. It was the same wooden box it had been when he entered, but he wasn't really bothered that the inside was bigger, for what troubles an adult will never trouble a child. Peter just assumed it was supposed to be that way.

He glanced up and realized with surprise that it was daytime. He hadn't noticed immediately because of the dark grey storm clouds that had moved in. Rain began to fall around the grounds of the gardens in cold sheets of grey.

Once again, Peter wasn't much bothered by the sudden jump from nighttime to daytime, nor by the sudden appearance of rain. The Neverland had far stranger weather.

The box had momentarily distracted Peter from the recent events that had been upsetting him. Finding himself in London, and not entirely remembering why he had come, Peter did what was instinct to him when he was in this part of the world: he flew to number 14. Already, he had forgotten that he'd only just visited Margaret and that she had been furious with him for some unknown reason. Peter's mind could be quite a troubled one, and much the same way fairies could only maintain one feeling at a time, Peter could often only maintain one exciting idea at a time. Now that the box had fully distracted him, his thoughts of Margaret and his mother were muddled.

Flying quickly to number 14, Peter found that she had closed the window. He had a word with the wind, which obligingly blew it open for him again.

Much to his surprise, it was not Margaret who waited for him in the nursery this time. The place had been transformed: the thick dust that had covered every inch of space in the nursery on his last visit had disappeared. Toys and cots were spread everywhere. On the ground slept six boys that Peter hardly recognized. They had not changed much since they left the Neverland, but Peter had forgotten all about them.

On the three beds three more figures slept: it was Wendy, John, and Michael.


End file.
